This invention relates to an evaporator-condenser for extracting usable water from the vapor in hot exhaust gases and the water in sanitary liquid waste.
The treatment and disposal of man's waste and discard has become one of the major problems of this technological society. In the past, solid waste has been primarily dumped in land fills and liquid waste has been typically processed by filtering processes or was simply discharged into the nearest available stream. However, because of the contamination of streams, rivers and lakes resulting from the dumping of man's waste and because of the increasing concern for recapturing our vital resources, such as minerals, water and energy, new techniques for efficiently disposing of the increasing mass of solid and liquid waste are required.
One approach to the disposal of solid and liquid waste as well as other materials lies in a combined and interrelated treatment of all of such materials in a single plant which also can be used to produce energy, valuable minerals and potable water. The solid waste can be incinerated, preferably continuously, and the heat generated by that incineration employed as an energy source for the distillation of water from liquid sanitary waste materials. The incombustible material, including metals, glass and the like, can then be recovered from the incinerator and recycled. A copending patent application entitled "Solid Waste and Sanitary Waste Treatment," filed Nov. 14, 1972, Ser. No. 306,383, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,859,174, describes one such integrated treatment plant. In such a plant, there is a need for an evaporator condenser chamber in which liquid sanitary waste can be quickly, efficiently and continuously processed to derive therefrom potable water and to convey solid and other contaminated waste products for further processing.
It, therefore, is an object of this invention to provide an improved evaporator-condenser unit for processing sanitary liquid waste and for deriving potable water therefrom.